'King of entrepreneurs' enters new arena

Business outlook

Currently, there are around 200 national players in the third-party payment market, among which Sun believed three to four could be Lakala's major rivals.

"But the market is big enough and different players have their own features and are not replaceable," he said, citing how people favored different cuisines as an example. "Some customers, for instance, usually use both Alipay and Lakala for online payments."

The People's Bank of China issued what it called a "Regulation on Payment Service of Non-financial Organization" on June 14, 2010, with the aim to officially supervise the domestic third-party payment industry. On May 26, 2011, the People's Bank of China granted the first batch of payment transaction licenses to 27 third-party payment companies.

Market transactions via third-party online payments hit 3.8 trillion yuan in 2012, up 76 percent over 2011, according to data by online research institute Enfodesk. In terms of market share, the top three third-party payment service providers in China are Alipay, Tenpay and ChinaPay.

However, the third-party payment market is still in its infancy and is expected to develop rapidly over the coming years.

Lakala mainly targets middle-to high-end customers with several credit cards.

"One of the striking features about Lakala is that we support the payment for credit cards issued from different banks, which indicates our customers have several credit cards and boast a comparatively stronger purchasing power," said Sun.

For Sun, issuing shares in the market is a landmark event signaling an enterprise's passage to adulthood. "We don't regard listing as a target. But when we are mature, we will definitely go to the capital market," he said.

For the chairman, one of the criteria to judge if a company is mature enough to go to the capital market is the company's market value.